9 May 1863.
My dear Sir,
I forward you with this an account of some novel experiments on Muscular Action,2 which may lead to further speculations in physiology
I have read your book on Heat3 with great pleasure, and your controversy with Thomson4 with still greater pleasure—as I feel satisfied you have only done simple justice to Mayer and Joule—Thomson’s own share in the Mechanical Theory of Heat is considered here to be of the minutest kind.
Yours faithfully | Saml. Haughton
John Tyndall Esq.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/2/488
LT Typescript Only
Samuel Haughton: Samuel Haughton (1821–97), an Irish mathematician, geologist, and physiologist, born in Carlow. From 1851 he held the chair of geology at Trinity College, Dublin, and from 1859, despite his chair and fellowship, enrolled as a medical student, until 1862. He subsequently published extensively on comparative anatomy, dissected large animals at the Dublin zoo, and, in 1866, proposed that criminals condemned to hang should be subject to a longer drop than was then current (death would be instantaneous and more humane, he argued) (ODNB).
an account of some novel experiments on Muscular Action: S. Haughton, Outlines of a New Theory of Muscular Action (London: Williams and Norgate, 1863).
your book on Heat: Heat as a Mode of Motion.
your controversy with Thomson: see letters 1998, 2002, 2004, and 2006, as well as the introductory essay for further commentary.
Please cite as “Tyndall2007,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on